An Unexpected Halloween Visitor

When my daughters came in the house yesterday evening to report that a raccoon had scared them en route to closing up the chicken coop, it didn't even occur to me that it happened to be Halloween night.

True, there had been a curious masked visitor in the backyard earlier in the day, someone wearing a wig and his favorite CD. That two minute selfie session with a cellphone had been the full extent of our observance of Halloween, other than the white plastic pumpkin decorating the "Wishing the Earth Well" leaf corral out front next to the sidewalk. Our street is not popular with trick or treaters to begin with, and we did nothing to lure them.

The lack of lights and decoration did not deter the night's one trick or treater from showing up, however, not at the front door but behind the house. Though raccoons are considered ubiquitous urban denizens, we had not seen one in the neighborhood since 2004, when a confused specimen passed through our backyard, looking lost.

My daughter's sighting didn't come as a complete surprise, though.

First, it explained what, or who, had been bending the wire fencing of one of my backyard leaf corrals, in a recurrent and unsuccessful attempt to get at its inner core of kitchen scraps. The rotting lettuce and old dogfood, out of reach behind hardware cloth, was the treat, and it was surprising the raccoon hadn't figure out a trick to get at it.

Second, there was the question of whether the raccoon's interest went beyond kitchen scraps to include our four chickens, two of which had taken to roosting in nearby evergreens and bushes rather than taking shelter in the coop. The assumption is that, come winter, if winter comes, the chickens would drop their summer dalliance with self-sufficiency and take refuge in the coop at night.

The girls gave me the flashlight, to lead the daring expedition back to where the raccoon had been spotted.

"Do you think it has rabies?", one of my daughters asked from behind me, not understanding why I wasn't more fearful. When I see a raccoon, I'm cautious of course, but inside, my heart begins to melt. My thoughts return to when they would visit my childhood home, surrounded by woods at the end of a road on the outskirts of a small Wisconsin town. They had been getting into our garbage cans, and all attempts to keep them out had failed.

One day, in broad daylight, a raccoon showed up in our side yard, sad looking, weak, clearly a reject from raccoon society. We named it Rangy, for its bedraggled appearance, took pity on it and gave it some food.

It may have been about this time that my father realized that, if we put our food scraps in a pan next to the woods, the raccoons would leave our garbage cans alone. This proved to be the beginning of a wonderful friendship. As the raccoons began to visit the pan, we decided to install a light to illuminate the edge of the woods, the better to see them. Soon we were tossing them peanuts in the shell from an open window. Closer they came, caution slowly yielding on both sides, until we reached the point where we could step out onto the back patio, hold a peanut out, and they would approach. They'd stand up gracefully and reach for it with those wonderful, delicate paws, take the peanut gently and scoot a short distance away to feast upon it. More and more came. The grownups would bring their young the next year. One night we counted 16. Rangy the Reject had spawned a coming together of human and raccoon society.

This was the era of books like Rascal, and Raccoons are the Smartest People. We knew what rabies was, had seen it occasionally in the odd behavior of an animal--like the groundhog that confronted me on a town street while biking home from school--and we respected the wildness of raccoons too much to consider having one as a pet. But that didn't deter us from appreciating all that is wonderful about them. One evening, we opened the kitchen door to see four raccoon cubs climbing on the screen door, their mother on the porch behind them. The mother was Whitey, the tamest and most gentle of them all, named for the beautiful white fur on her underside. She had brought her new family to meet us. By then, we were actually letting her come in the kitchen door a few feet to get peanuts. Somewhere, there's a photo of her reaching up to touch the knob on our little black and white TV. Of course, we always made sure she had an escape route, so as not to feel trapped. No one ever dared get between her and the open door.

The raccoon that visited us last night, like Rangy long ago, also seemed like a reject. It didn't run away at our approach, but instead remained perched on the fence, looking at us. Though large, it seemed weak and slow. Finally, it climbed awkwardly down the fence and disappeared into the dark.

To be on the safe side, we decided to pluck Buffy, the last of our first batch of chickens from five years ago, from her perch in a nearby lilac bush, and put her in the coop with two others. We closed the coop and headed back in.

To some extent, our free range chickens offer a similar experience to what I had as a child. We feed them, but mostly they forage for themselves, tame and yet living their own lives. Where once I delighted as the wild became more tame, with the chickens we watch as the tame explore aspects of the wild. Last night, those two worlds intersected next to the chicken coop. I thought of leaving some food out for the raccoon in nights to come, but then thought again. How to handle this convergence, for the good of all involved, is not at all clear. I don't expect any reprise of a childhood in small town Wisconsin. Whether the answer is trick or treat, our backyard Halloween is just beginning.

Healthy Children, Healthy Planet--2014

The Riverside Elementary PTO brought the country to the people last weekend, for their annual environmental fair and fundraiser. There was Dorothy Mullen--who with the help of many volunteers over the years has nurtured the Riverside gardens to their glorious state--announcing the winners of the raffle.

And a small herd of sheep whose wool was being spun into yarn just outside the pen. The sheep must have been wondering why humans don't just grow their own fur.

There were some fine exhibits by the Friends of Princeton Open Space and the Princeton Schools Garden Initiative, some crafts, a plant sale, a yoga clinic...

My table, despite being stocked with info-packed books and pamphlets with compelling names like Rain Garden Manual of New Jersey, the Princeton Environmental Resource Inventory, and Princeton's Guide to Leaf Management, lacked a certain charisma until Dorothy's chickens arrived.

Kids related to the chickens in different ways. This boy lingered and gazed at them with a deep curiosity,

while others took particular pleasure in holding one. This chicken, named Buttons, being held most happily by a girl named Muktaa, is one my daughter brought to the fair from our countrified backyard on Harrison Street. (Thanks to Karla Cook for this photo.)

The event, riding the tide of a perfect day, raised $6000 towards sustaining the garden education programs that have become an important part of school curriculum.

In the words of lead organizers Beth Behrend and Julie Capozzoli, the event helps "provide all of our children with lifelong lessons in nutrition, healthy living, sustainability, hands-on learning and much more"

Terhune Orchards' "Turning 40" Tour

As I hurried to catch the start of a 40th anniversary tour of Terhune Orchards, surprised that I was actually on time, I passed a major showoff in the chicken coop. The white peacock was trying to impress the chickens, who were clearly more interested in the food.

As with the chickens, it's the food that's always impressed me about Terhune Orchards. No big show, just consistently great when it comes to taste and quality. No fancy facade, just keepin' it real. Cider, donuts, apples that just keep coming, and some 35 other crops to make the short drive out of town worthwhile. There's also the integration of business and community spirit, of which the chickens may not have paid much notice.

On this farm, utility is mixed with charm. History sits comfortably mingled with the modern in a multi-generational assemblage of "stuff".

Speaking of connections with the past, it turns out that the Terhunes, from whom the Mounts bought the farm 40 years ago, shared some common ancestors with Gary Mount, who had grown up on a farm in West Windsor next to Route 1. The Mounts learned of this only many years after the purchase.

I made it to the big barn in time for introductory remarks by three generations of Mounts. Two daughters and their families have returned to continue the tradition.

Solar panels on the big red barn, constructed by Amish woodworkers using the traditional oak pins instead of nails, supply 40% of the energy required to run the barn's climate control machinery.

Apples are stored in two different chambers. One is kept cold and humid, and keeps the apples fresh for several months. The other is for longterm storage. There, behind lock and key, the process of ripening and decay is stymied by dropping the oxygen level from 20% down to 2%. The oxygen is pushed out by injecting additional nitrogen into the room. Each month in the winter and spring, the door is opened, oxygen is allowed in so that workers can breathe, and a month's worth of apples are moved to the other chamber.

Outside, honey bees were pollinating the cherry blossoms. During the two weeks just before harvest, plastic is drawn over the hoops to protect the cherries from rain (and supposedly from the birds as well). Otherwise, the cherries will absorb the moisture and crack.

Apple trees are now planted much closer together than in the tradition configuration seen in the parking lot. Their trunks are so weak that they need to be staked, lest they fall over with a heavy load of apples, but the harvest is double what it used to be.

Pick your own asparagus. Ruth Stout, in her book from the 1940s called "How To Have a Green Thumb Without An Aching Back", described how gardeners used to dig a two foot deep trench to plant their asparagus in, then backfilled slowly as the asparagus grew. All that work, Stout contended, was unnecessary. Simply plant the asparagus at ground level. I didn't ask Gary Mount what his planting method is, but they make farming look so easy, I'm sure they don't seek out unnecessary work.

Some years back, one of their employees took an interest in greenhouse gardening, and the Mounts went with it. There are now three greenhouses, with one separated from the other tow, devoted to organic methods. Cloth is pulled over the space in winter, to provide at least a little insulation for this fuel-intensive space.

We got a tour of the bakery. It's surprisingly small, considering the output, not much larger than some expansive kitchens I've seen in private homes around town. The cider operation, too, is surprisingly compact. Apples that have slight blemishes or are too small for sale as apples are used to make cider. There's some thought put into blending different kinds. I asked why Terhune Orchard cider is so much richer in taste than other brands, and learned that most cider makers don't grow their own apples, but are supplied with small apples without much flavor. Stayman apples, not often used elsewhere, are also a particularly rich component of Terhune cider.

That accordion-like structure in the background, reminiscent of an Argentine bandoneon, is the cider press. I didn't ask whether the press plays tangoes while squeezing. The cider's then flash pasteurized, stored in big stainless steel containers designed for dairy operations, then jugged. The pulp is spread on fields using a manure spreader.

That was the tour. Gary headed out on a tractor to plant some corn. I headed back to town with donuts and asparagus, to catch some of Communiversity. Happy anniversary, Terhune Orchards! May there be 40 more.

Ducks in Snow

We didn't have tracks like these in the backyard last winter. What could they be?

No, not the robins, who paid a visit to the water tray the day before.

Not the wild turkey that surprised us with a visit last year.

Here they are. Not snowy owls or snowy egrets, but the great snow ducks of the notsonorth, heading for ...

minipond heaven, or at least haven, courtesy of the recent rains.

The ducks show far more courage than their coopmates, who are playing chicken in the warmest corner they can find.

Are Foxes Poised for a Cyclical Decline?

Walking back towards the parking lot at Herrontown Woods the other day, I was surprised to see a fox up ahead, trotting in my direction. It turned down a side path before it reached me, seemingly unaware of my presence. The fox was showing the classic symptoms of mange, more specifically sarcoptic mange, having lost much of its fur, and you have to wonder what it's prospects are for the winter.

 
That sad, raggedly fox moving on down the trail, seemingly resigned to its fate, brought back memories of this photo sent to me years back by Christy and Brian Nann, taken at Greenway Meadows. The Mercer County Wildlife Center confirmed for me that it was a red fox stripped of fur by mange, with little chance of survival.

Typing "mange" into the search box for this blog, I was not surprised to find that the photo was taken in late 2008, roughly ten years ago.

That eleven year gap in sightings of mange may not be a matter of chance. Somewhere along the way, growing up in small town Wisconsin or reading wildlife magazines, I learned that foxes and their prey go through a ten year population cycle. There's a boom and then there's a bust.

In recent years, we've been witnessing the boom. Foxes have been flourishing in Princeton, moving up stream corridors into new urban areas. Certainly they've been making their presence known in our neighborhood. My wakeup call came two years ago, when a fox ambushed two of our last three chickens, consuming one and leaving the other stashed under a neighbor's bush for a future meal. Clearly, the local predators were upping their game. Earlier this year, during dogwalks at dusk, I would occasionally see a fox trotting confidently down the middle of the street before ducking behind a house. Late at night, I'd hear their baleful bark in our driveway. A few blocks away, a fox family had a large litter under a neighbor's porch, causing some controversy as to what if anything should be done. The most impressive sighting came last winter, when I was standing in the Herrontown Woods parking lot. Across the stream, a beautiful specimen was moving stealthily through the woods. It paused and went into a crouch, then pounced, penetrating through the few inches of snow with uncanny precision, then trotted off with a rodent in its mouth.

There's logic to the boom, and logic to the bust that may now be underway. When predators are few, rabbits and rodents increase, providing foxes with an abundant food source. Then, as the fox numbers increase, their skillful predation continues taking a toll on their food supply until the foxes find themselves with little to eat. The too numerous foxes begin to starve, and their weakening immune systems make them vulnerable to the burrowing mites that cause mange. The fox population crashes, the rabbits and rodents rebound, and the cycle begins anew. The internet is full of stories of this boom and bust, from Colorado to one out of Vermont that gives an especially detailed description of the biology behind the afflicted fox's misery. The Vermont post suggests that mange can be an isolated event, but also tells of how mange once precipitated a 95% drop in the fox population in a city in the UK.

There are lots of questions to ask. Has the boom cycle in foxes reduced Princeton's population of rats? Might it explain why there seem to be fewer squirrels around than in past years? Might predation of mice be expected to reduce the prevalence of ticks and lyme disease? Is there a ten year ebb and flow to fox raids on chicken coops?

Though rodents can survive a boom in the red fox population, less certain is the resilience of ground-nesting birds on the Jersey shore, like the endangered plover. Red foxes, it turns out, were introduced from Europe. The native gray foxes tend to stay deeper in the forest, and so the red foxes may pose a threat in more open habitat that the shorebirds have not evolved to defend themselves against.

To protect the birds, the state Division of Fish and Wildlife has been culling the red fox population along the shore. Residents outraged by the intentional killing of such beautiful animals managed to get 80,000 signatures on a petition demanding the state's trapping program end. If the petitioners were successful, however, the results might not be exactly humane. When an unfettered population of foxes ran out of endangered shorebirds and other prey to eat, it could succumb to mange--a painful and deadly condition that makes the government's trapping program look highly humane by comparison.

Of course, no enlightened fox is going to rise up and warn its brethren to have smaller litters in order to sustain adequate prey and avoid the epidemic of mange. It is humans who have that gift of foresight and sophisticated communication that can forestall calamity, and yet our special gifts are being spent not to limit our own boom and bust cycle--played out over centuries rather than decades--but to create the conditions for a bust of such global proportions that no life form will remain untouched. Whether it's CO2 or foxes, we live in an era when superficial views of nature predominate, when the misplaced sympathies of 80,000 people can be manipulated to oppose the one government action that could protect both the endangered birds and the foxes from calamity.

This is the journey of thought, back to my youth and forward to a shared future, that can spring from a chance sighting of a forlorn fox along a wooded trail.

Some useful links: 
Princeton's Animal Control officer
Mercer County Wildlife Center

From what I've read, mange in foxes poses little risk to people or pets. 

The Big Bird That Got Away

This is one of those old fish crow stories, about hearing a fish crow in the backyard this morning, going "uh uh"..."uh uh", again and again, with that call that sounds like it's contradicting everything you happen to be thinking. "Uh uh. That's a lousy idea," it seems to be saying. "Uh uh. You don't want to do that." And so I go out on the back patio to see what all the "uh uhs" are about, and locate the fish crow, seemingly alone in the top of the silver maple tree, and while I'm looking up, out of the corner of my eye I see a great blue heron lifting itself up out of the shrubbery screening the chicken coop and fly off in its heavy, gangly way, swooping around an evergreen tree to drop back down to the ground a couple doors away. We have no fish, nor any pond this time of year to even offer hope of fish. Was it remembering ponds and goldfish past? Or was it hanging out with the chickens, who also were clustered under the shrubs? Maybe some kind of big bird affinity happening there. And why was the fish crow making that steady, repetitive call, as if monitoring the situation and letting fellow crows know what gives? I went over to my neighbor's. He has a pond with a pump-driven waterfall. The great blue heron was gone.

That was a good photo that got away, and if the neighbor had any fish in his pond, a couple long-necked gulps may have left his pond as empty as the tree in this photo.

Ducklings Born in Princeton!

In a humble coop behind our house on busy Harrison Street, a mallard named Swee' Pea found herself sitting on five ducklings this morning, where five eggs had been the night before. She had been patiently sitting on the nest of straw, feather down and eggs for several weeks. Yesterday, my daughter noticed Swee' Pea becoming increasingly territorial, hissing and thrusting her beak at anyone who came close. Now we know why.

Buttons the Araucana chicken checked things out from a safe distance,

while the father, Ronnie, lacking cigars, took a dip in the tippable duck pond that gets fresh water from the roof gutter every time it rains.

The other ducks normally don't go back in the coop in the middle of the day, but today they did, apparently out of curiosity.

Congratulations, Swee' Pea!

Meanwhile, the owners of said ducks and coop are sent scrambling to the internet to ask a recurring question in animal husbandry, "Now what?"

Chickens at Howell Living History Farm

This past January, visiting Mercer County's Howell Living History Farm to watch them collect pond ice, we also got a tour of the chicken coop. There was quite a crowd of chickens, but fresh straw was strewn all about. In the foreground is the watering can (heated to prevent freezing). Perhaps the cone-shaped "hat" over the water can prevents chickens from roosting on top of the can, and reflects some of the heat back down in winter. In back are all the nests.

On the left in this second photo are two parallel boards that serve as roosts where the chickens pass the night in a trance-like state.

The roost is also where they leave 90% of their droppings, so it's good to have a designated location for roosting that can be easily cleaned. I've also heard that chickens can sometimes squabble over which gets the highest roosting site, which may be why both of these long roosting boards are the same height.

Chickens + food + TLC = eggs + kids + delight

Though I'm sure there's more to keeping all these chickens happy, what often meets the eye at Howell Farm is an appealing simplicity.

Their calendar of events is here: http://www.howellfarm.org/calendar/calendar.htm

Roosters in Princeton

To all the voices that hold forth in Princeton, add some cockadoodledoos. I had heard that there were some roosters among us--a painter who grew up in South Africa told me a few years ago the sound made him feel at home--but had not heard any until this past month. One was east of Harrison Street a few blocks, which I took the liberty of photgraphing. The other is within crowing distance of town hall.

The legality of having poultry in Princeton comes up now and then. There are some ordinances left over from the borough/township days that were contradictory. The straightest answer I got when I looked into it was from the town's former animal control officer, who said they are legal, or at least tolerated, as long as the neighbors are happy. It was my impression that roosters were not permitted, but it may be that the happy neighbor rule determines whether any ordinance, written or improvised, is enforced.

Though a rooster would never tell you this, they aren't needed for egg production. We'd have to ask the owners if they intentionally bought roosters. Chickens are sold when just a couple weeks old, when sex identification can be tricky. Famed Princeton resident Joyce Carol Oats said, in response to a question I asked after she read from her memoir at the Princeton Public Library, that chickens in general and roosters in particular were an important part of her childhood.

We currently have one Pekin duck and four Aracana chickens. The chickens are quiet sorts, but the duck can speak out at various points during the day, calling for more food, or announcing to the world that it is now waddling across the lawn. Neighbors tell me they like the sounds, as a rural salve for the traffic noise on Harrison Street. The droppings disappear into the grass, and any scratching the chickens do leaves our flower gardens undisturbed.

As pets, they are low maintenance. Clean the coop now and then, make sure there's food and water in the backyard, open the coop in the morning, close it at night. We free-range them, meaning they have the run of the fenced-in backyard. We have lost a few to hawks over the years, usually in late fall and winter when wild prey are less available and the birds have less cover. It can be traumatic, but it brings us up against important issues of life and death, pet vs. livestock, quality of life vs. longevity, risks and rewards, and our relationship to the wild animal community that also calls Princeton home. Interestingly, it's the white birds that the hawks have left alone, as if hawks, too, associate whiteness with some otherworldly nature.

The chickens have shown no desire to fly away, and the duck is so heavy that she has even less chance of clearing a fence than the contraption the claymation chickens built in the movie Chicken Run. The chickens lay eggs most days, and the duck produces one egg per day like clockwork. An Italian neighbor, who barely speaks english, knocks on our door periodically, seeking a dozen duck eggs for her Chinese daughter in law. Perhaps the greatest pleasure, in a town where yards go unused and can tend towards sterile display, is seeing how much the birds appreciate and take full advantage of what the yard has to give.

Though a rooster might help protect the hens, our "guard duck" performs a similar role while producing copious amounts of eggs. In addition to her big, boisterous voice during the day, at dusk she assumes her post just inside the coop door, her beak a formidable weapon ready to unleash against any would-be intruders.

A previous post gives more details, and local sources of chicks. Rosedale Mills told me they were selling chickens beyond the optimal April/May season, though it helps if they are fully grown by the time winter comes. 

A Flood-Ready Garden

This morning, Sustainable Princeton will host another in its excellent series of Great Ideas Breakfasts at the Princeton Public Library. This month's program is about water that comes through Princeton in all its forms: precipitation, runoff, drinking water, wastewater. I'll be leading one of the discussion groups, on the concept of resilient landscapes. Below are some photos of the stream that flows through my backyard during heavy, extended rains, and how I've harnessed that water to drive a productive and diverse habitat of native floodplain wildflowers, sedges, and (my daughter's contribution) ducks.

The water cometh from uphill.

In its path lies this normally tranquil scene, with a series of miniponds, a constructed stream channel, native sedges, rushes, and wildflowers building towards summer blooms, and a chicken.

After heavy rain falls steadily for a day or so, upstream soils become saturated and begin to shed any additional rainfall. The water begins to flow in from uphill neighbors' yards, bringing this ephemeral stream to life. When the rains stop, the plants will emerge unharmed and replenished, and a little of the runoff will have been held back, slowed down, by the series of check dams and miniponds.

Now looking towards the back of the property, a quiet "before" scene: our path to a little town park bordering our yard.

And a "during" scene, as rainwater runoff flows from the park into our yard, and gets redirected by a berm so that it will feed our ponds and then flow safely between two houses just down the slope from us.

Being ready to accommodate a flood also better prepares a yard for droughts. Slowing the water down allows an underground reservoir of moisture to form, sustaining trees and wildflowers through the dry times.

A "fillable, spillable" pond prototype--something of a mockup intended to give the ducks a place to swim during droughts. And, when the ducks have mucked it up the way ducks do, or when the mosquito wigglers appear, it can be easily tipped to spill and refill with clean water. Need to build a rock wall ramp on either side to provide ornament and also a means for the ducks to waddle up into the water.

The ducks love the heavy rains.

The chickens? Not so much.

Hawks and Hummingbirds

When a red-tailed hawk flew into the neighbor's spruce tree the other day, the good news for the chickens and ducks was that I happened to be outside at the time. Last fall, after the leaves had fallen, we lost a chicken to a Coopers hawk in very traumatic fashion. The day following the attack by the Coopers hawk, I found a big red-tailed hawk perched above the coop in the early morning, as if it were a customer waiting to be served breakfast. The word was out about our tasty pets. It looked like the backyard would be under siege for the duration, requiring that the chickens live the rest of their days in the protective enclosure of the coop. Instead, the hawks stopped coming, and we gradually returned to the liberal and very convenient routine of letting the chickens out in the morning, to forage freely for insects and worms in our fenced-in yard until dusk.

Why this latest hawk flew into the dense branches of the spruce tree isn't clear, but the local hummingbird was not at all pleased. It flew straight towards the hawk, like a tiny missile, stopping three feet from the evergreen tree, hovering, then returning to another tree to perch. I imagined the hawk munching on hummingbird eggs, but it seemed late in the season to be raising another brood. After a few minutes, the hawk shifted to a nearby oak, posed for a photo, endured more harassment from small birds, and then flew off.

Since then, the hawk has not returned, perhaps intimidated either by my presence or the more constant backyard presence of the big white Pekin duck, which seems clumsy and a little silly to us, but may in size and occasional deep quack give the hawk pause. The hummingbird, too, has disappeared, but that may only be because I'm actually looking for it. Far better to be preoccupied with some task, and let the corner of the eye catch flashes of all the winged visitors.

Walking On Ice

Yesterday, with sidewalks made slippery by freezing rain overnight, my daughter made her early morning departure to walk to the high school. My first thought, hearing the door close behind her, was that I should have offered to give her a ride.

Usually a second thought is more cautious than the first, but my second thought was comforting. Walking on ice is a skill best learned when young, when reflexes are quick and bones resilient. With practice, one learns how to minimize the risk, how to test the traction as one goes, and the eye learns to identify the ice's subtle differences in texture and shade that determine where best to put the next foot. "Testing the ice", having to do with how kids can safely learn about risk, is a concept Richard Louv speaks of in his book "Last Child in the Woods".

My own walk on morning ice involved crossing the backyard to feed the duckens (we're down to one duck and one chicken). Each step on ice-coated snow required a calculation so quick it merged with instinct. Partway across the yard, my muscles remembered this particular style of walking that must have been learned during long winter treks to school as a kid, a style that combines small quick steps with forward momentum, so that weight doesn't linger on any one foot. It speeded me safely across the treacherous frozen snow, water and food in hand.

Later in the day, we got an email from the Princeton Public Schools superintendent, apologizing for not calling for a delayed school opening, given the icy conditions. He had a good excuse. The ice didn't form until 7am--too late to delay the opening--and a predicted late-morning freeze had made it sound like a delayed opening might be more dangerous than beginning at the regular hour.

All students reportedly made it safely to school, and I'll bet that a lot of learning happened even before school began, as those who walked gained valuable experience with walking on ice--experience that will remain in their muscle memory and serve them well in years to come.

The Incredible Whiteness of Early Summer Flowers

Count the ways a flower can be white in early summer:

A white version of obedient plant in a frontyard raingarden fed by water from the roof,

The first summer bloom of rose mallow hibiscus in a backyard swale fed by water from the uphill neighbors,

boneset getting ready to pop,

Culver's root,

some elderberry flowers late to the party, growing next to the chicken coop,

pokeweed,

tall meadowrue,

lizard's tail,

bottlebrush buckeye,

black cohosh up among the boulders on the Princeton ridge,

buttonbush and

oakleaved hydrangia, both growing in front of the Whole Earth Center,

Yucca filamentosa in a neighbor's front yard,

and, at Westminster's parking lot raingardens, some unintended white clover,

catnip,

and Queen Anne's lace.

These last three on nonnative; the rest are native to the eastern U.S.